The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
In the field of personal or portable alarm devices, it is known to use portable modules or telephone terminals provided with an alarm button. Such devices have the drawbacks of being little too discrete and bulky, easily forgettable, possibly requiring the use of a telephone terminal or the same to connect to a network, detectable in case of deep-search, and inoperative in some situations (shackled hands, necessity of discretion, etc).
To address some of these problems, it is known from the document EP 2 774 502 to dispose, inside a safety shoe, one or several sensor(s) capable of measuring parameters indicative of a work accident undergone by the wearer of the shoe (such as for example the detection of a fall), a microcontroller (also abstracted as MCU) which determines whether the measured parameters reveal such an accident, and a wireless transceiver capable of automatically transmitting an alarm signal to a remote reader when the microcontroller establishes an accident situation.
However, the shoe of the document EP 2 774 502 does not enable its wearer to notify a danger situation that concerns him or which he is witnessing, but only allows automatically notifying an accident that he has just undergone. In other words, the wearer cannot communicate at his own initiative, because only the automatic determination of an accident situation by the microcontroller on the basis of the measurements of the sensors is at the origin of the communication with the remote reader. In addition, the shoe cannot communicate with the wearer to notify him that his alarm signal (automatic in this instance) has been properly considered, and can neither allow receiving an alert regarding an immediate or incoming danger concerning him. Although audible or luminous warning devices are provided on the shoe, these are activated by the microcontroller only in case of automatic determination of an accident situation, and even in case of dysfunctions of the electronics of the shoe or of discharge of the battery. Thus, the wearer does not receive any confirmation that the alarm signal has been successfully addressed, or that it has been properly received, or that it has been properly taken into consideration by the competent services.
It is also known from the document FR 2 156 280 to equip a shoe with a control member, placed on the sole inside the shoe, which is constituted by a flexible contactor forming a switch which can be manipulated by a toe of the wearer. In case of danger, the wearer displaces the contactor with his toe in order to establish an electrical contact which will automatically trigger the emission of an alarm signal by an emitter housed inside the heel of the shoe.
However, such a shoe does not provide confirmation to the wearer that the alarm signal has been successfully addressed, and still has been properly received, and still is properly taken into consideration by the competent services. In general, this shoe does not allow receiving messages coming from the outside. Besides, the use of a flexible contactor enables only but a binary use, the switch is either open or closed, thereby limiting its use to a simple sending of an alarm signal. Finally, this shoe does not integrate any means for avoiding parasitic, inadvertent or unintentional triggering, in other words false positives, so that, inadvertently, the wearer of the shoe may address an alarm signal in an unintentional manner and without being aware that he has addressed such an alarm signal and without being able to cancel his alarm signal. These and other issues are addressed by the present disclosure.